Computer networks, in general, interconnect multiple computer systems for the purpose of sharing information and facilitating communications. Computer networks include private networks which interconnect computers within a particular enterprise, such as an intranet, and public networks, which interconnect one or more of the computers of enterprises, public institutions and/or private individuals. One exemplary public network is the Internet. The Internet is a packet switched network which utilizes the Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”) suite to communicate data.
Networking computers together generally increases efficiency and reduces wasted resources. These advantages are spurring significant growth in the number of computers/user being connected by networks and the volume of data they are exchanging. This growth is, in turn, spurring advances in network technologies to handle the increased demand being placed on these network infrastructures.
This is evident on the Internet where each day more and more users connect to the Internet adding to the millions of existing users already communicating and exchanging data via this public infrastructure. Further, new applications for the network, such as streaming video, telephony services, real time interactive content, instant messaging, and peer to peer communications continue to be developed in addition to the exponential growth in the user of traditional network applications, such as the world wide web and electronic mail. This growth is placing an incredible strain on the Internet infrastructure that causes network traffic to slow and hardware to overload. In particular, some of these new applications for the network are dependent upon the quality of service (“QoS”) of the network and cannot tolerate arbitrary reductions in throughput. For example, traffic interruptions in a voice telephony application may result in garbled or delayed communications which may not be tolerable to the users of such an application.
A way to solve these resultant network traffic jams is to increase the speed of the network and increase its bandwidth. Another solution is to retrofit the existing infrastructure to use new technologies, such as optical fiber interconnections, which substantially increases network throughput and bandwidth.
Unfortunately, a network, and in particular the Internet, is not simply a collection of interconnections. Other devices, such as routers, switches, hubs, and cache servers, form an integral part of the network infrastructure and play important roles in its performance. Upgrading the interconnections of the network without also upgrading the hardware which makes all of those interconnections function, will only serve to move the bottlenecks but not eliminate them. Further, hardware devices, which seek to enhance the network, such as content delivery devices or security devices, must similarly be upgraded so as not to degrade any overall enhancements to the network infrastructure.
While network technologies continue to advance, some of these technologies advance at a quicker pace than others. Where these technologies interface, it is often necessary to adapt the slower evolving technology to keep up with the faster evolving technology. In such a case, advances in optical networking technologies are far exceeding advances in the technologies to enhance the communications being carried by the network.
In particular, many network enhancement applications, such as security applications or content delivery applications, require the interception and processing of data from the network in order to perform their function. By default then, these devices become a choke point through which all the data of the network must pass. Therefore, this interception and processing device needs to operate at or beyond the wire speed, i.e. the operating throughput of the network, or the device becomes a bottle neck. In most cases, where the device cannot keep pace with the network, any benefits of the application will be outweighed by the degradation caused in network throughput. Unfortunately, optical networking technologies are increasing wire speeds beyond the current capabilities of packet processing technology.
Accordingly, there is a need for a way to cost effectively adapt existing packet processing technologies so as not to degrade network performance.